This study was aimed to explore the causal relationship between economic growth and public expenditure. In order to find out the relationship, this study analyses the change of causality between public expenditure and economic growth in Korea from the year of 1970 to 2009, focusing on the changes since monetary crisis in 1997. Time series data from 1970 to 2009 Korean National Account were used for this study. As empirical strategies, the author adopted Granger Causality Test, Impulse Response, VECM, Chow test methods. The main findings are summarized as followings. First, the result from Granger causality shows that economic growth had a positive impact on growth of public expenditure over the total period. Second, results from time-series data analysis find that the causal relationship exists only from economic growth to public expenditure before the monetary crisis. Specifically, the causal direction of economic growth and social welfare expenditure showed the opposite tendencies before and after the monetary crisis. These results indicates that the impact of public expenditure, inclduing social welfare expenditure has bee increased since the monetary crisis of 1997.